Quiet Disorder's debut EP, Disorder EP1, is out now on disco:wax. I loved the new project, so decided to ask them a couple questions about a handful of topics. Check out the Q&A below after streaming their new EP below.
Quiet Disorder is a duo from separate parts of Europe. Lars Van Dalen is from Norway and Mike Moorish is from Sweden. How did you guys initially connect to create this group? Why did you choose to stay away from being solo acts?
We first meet almost 10 year ago, through a mutual producer friend of us, John Moss.
We ended up doing some tracks together and after some years we started to do more and more collaborations under our own names, mainly tech-house and deep-house tracks.
3-4 years ago we started to look for something different to do and started making more and more melody orientated tunes. Guess we where a little bored of those styles of music we did back then to be honest… And at the same time we probably saw that we had our different strength and worked well together so we wanted to develop that even more as a duo instead of being solo acts.
Congratulations on releasing your very first self-titled EP! Why did you guys decide to wait a year to drop your first project?
Thank you! We constantly write new tracks, and some tracks like the ones on this EP is really sample based if that makes sense, no vocalists and straight up club tracks. We have been releasing almost a track or a remix every month in 2017, and some singles with different vocalists and we realized we had quite a few tracks that could work as an EP. A collection of tracks that also shows a bit of diversity we hope, but in the end is 100% “Disorder”!
Some of your most well received music were collaborations with the Pegboard Nerds, how did you guys end up collaborating with them? Did you expect the records to take off like they did?
Lars: Alex from Pegboard Nerds is an old friend of mine, we both come from the same hometown. I met Alex first almost 16-17 years ago when I was running this record store in our hometown, and he knew I also was one of the local DJ´s at that time. So he reached out one day when he was in the store and gave me this demo CD to check out. I remember I brought it home and actually played one of the tracks out a few weeks later at this local nightclub, it was really good even he had just started making music I think! But after that we did not see each other for a few years actually until he sent me a message on MySpace, almost at the same time I had bought this super expensive Mac Pro with Logic 7, and just started out producing! I think we spoke more or less every day after that for a couple of years on the phone and became really good friends. I actually got a chance to remix his first ever solo single under another name he had back then, and this was also one of my first official remixes that got released, funny enough on disco:wax, the same label we are on now! I did not know much about mixing at that time, so I remember I drove to his studio and he helped out mixing and mastering it!
When we started Quiet Disorder we did not want to do any of the music that we had done before as solo artist, so Alex asked if we wanted to try and remix their track “Downhearted” since they where working on a remix EP for their Pink Cloud EP and we had made a few electro and bass-music tunes. Luckily they liked what we did and it got included on the remix EP! Then we did a couple of more remixes for them and started to get more together in the studio together again between their tours and stuff like that.
“Go Berzerk” happened by pure studio fun! It happened so naturally and nothing was planned. We had been at Alex´ studio in Norway for some days we had been working on another track together (that is not finished or released yet actually). On the last night before we where going home we where just messing with some sound design and hanging out in the studio, nothing planned. Then all the sudden Alex played the riff in the intro, and I got some ideas for the groove and we found this vocal sample and all the sudden 3-4 hours later we had more or less 80% of the track done. We did have a session a couple of months later and made a new drop and finalized it!
“Move That Body” actually was a finished Quiet Disorder track originally, and Alex asked if he maybe could get remix-kit for it so he could try out a few ideas. I think he heard something in it he liked obviously but he never got the time to start a remix if I recall it correctly. The original track never got signed anywhere, we got rejected from everyone…
Then Pegboard Nerds´ manager heard it and asked if it maybe be a collaboration, and since we had not got it signed and almost given it all up we started talking about what we could do with it. So we brought the original version in stems to the studio, made a new drop and a whole new track around a few of the stems from the initial track it once was!
Not in our wildest fantasy we thought those tracks would take off like they did! “Go Berzerk” was this fun track we made on a Saturday night, and “Move That Body was this track we almost gave up! Very grateful for how it all worked out in the end!
What are some of your biggest musical influences?
Lars: Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode and Faithless has all had a big influence on me in the early years of getting into electronic music!
Mike: That is such a hard question every time, there is so many.. Faithless, Prodigy, Armand Van Helden to name a few.
If you could collaboration with any musician, dead or alive, who would it be & why?
Lars: Michael Jackson, such a great unique voice!
Mike: Agree with Lars on that one. MJ would have been really fun to have on a track.
You guys have been on the EDM scene for around 20 years: What are some things you miss? & What are some things you are happy to see gone?
Lars: I don´t miss vinyl one bit as a traveling DJ! But that said, I do miss the physical record digging and spending time reading the credits in the sleeves.
Mike: I don’t really miss anything that much, I have to say the same as Lars. I am really happy i don’t have to play vinyl or cd’s anymore and that i don’t have to carry around those heavy crates.
You have received a ton of praise from a handful of big names in Electronic Dance community, Knife Party, Krewella, Dyro, and NGHTMRE to name a few, which artist in particular got you guys the most excited?
The amount on dj support and festival plays we got on “Move That Body” in particular is pretty crazy and a new experience for us at least! Seeing Knife Party playing it on the main stage at Ultra Mexico was unreal. Also just saw Fedde Le Grand played it in his set at the Ultra Miami main stage this year, one year after its release! Things like that still gives goosebumps!
How do you like being on disco:wax? The Nordic imprint is one of the bigger European EDM imprint, so that must be exciting!
Yes, very exciting! We have a really great relationship with the guys there and have known them for many years, so when we got the opportunity to work with them it was really exciting! They are really supportive and it´s become more a team-relationship, bouncing ideas back and forth and most of the time they like what we do or can provide constructive feedback that is really important for us.
What’s next for Quiet Disorder?
We are constantly writing new music, and we have a couple of vocalist we are currently doing some tracks with. Also there is some collaborations that needs to be finished… 🙂
